Page 116 of Storm over the Caribbean
Growling, I whipped out my pistol and fired without hesitation. The officer gave a yelp, and promptly went down clutching his leg, his head hitting the deck with a thud and knocking him out.
What, you thought just because I didn’t plan to interfere that I was going to walk around unarmed? Dream on!
The soldiers, meanwhile, were still patiently waiting for the command to fire. None of them seemed to have noticed that their superior officer was out like a light on the deck behind them.
Well, my last name is Ambrose now. How can I waste time or opportunities?
I aimed again.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
After three more men went down, the rest of them seemed to catch on to what was happening. Whirling around, they frantically searched the enemy ship’s deck—until one of them gave a shout and stabbed his arm forward. It was pointing straight at where my head was poking above the deck.
Damn!
“Over there!” The man shouted. “Get him! Get that bastard! Fire! Fire!”
As one, they raised their rifles. Before I could even move a single muscle, they took aim, and…
Blood on the Sea
“Rraaaah!”
With a bestial roar I would have expected more of a primordial monster than of my silent ice block of a husband, Mr Rikkard Ambrose barrelled into the line of soldiers, wielding his knife like an insane serial killer on psychotropic drugs. The man who had been shouting to shoot at me went down first, the knife hitting him in the gut so hard it went all the way through and came out the other side.
“Guh!”
Grabbing the whole man like a piece of meat on a shashlik stick, Mr Ambrose swept him up into the air and hurled him at three of his compatriots. Not waiting to see how they went down, he whirled around towards the remaining four soldiers, a stolen rifle in his hands.
Do you want to know something interesting about soldiers? When they shoot, they form up in a line. Probably a good idea, normally, so they don’t shoot each other. But if someone was standing at one end of that line with a rifle in his hand…
Bam!
…it’s not such a good idea.
The bullet went through the first man right into the second, and through him into the third, who was hurled straight into the last man standing. Rushing forward, Mr Ambrose lifted the butt of his rifle and brought it down onto the man’s head.
Crack!
The sound echoed across the ocean. As it faded, I suddenly realized how quiet it had become.
I swallowed.
“Is…is it over?”
A moment later, my question was answered by an explosion of cheers. The pirates rushed forward, past the unmoving bodies of their foes, straight towards Mr Ambrose. Tensing, I tightened my grip around my pistol—then nearly dropped it when they lifted him up and hurled him into the air.
“Hip, hip, huzzah!”
“Hip, hip, huzzah!”
“Great work!”
“That’s the stuff, lad!”
I clung to the ladder and watched as my husband and employer, Mr Rikkard Ambrose, the son of a noble lord and the most respectable businessman in all of Great Britain, was being carried on the shoulders of a bunch of pirates. Pirates who werecheeringfor him.
Hasn’t my world gone crazy enough yet?
